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For Release 11:00 P.H., E.D.T. , Sunday. September 11th, 1977 

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400 AMERICAN JOUI 
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ISTS SECRETLY AIDED THE 
ENCE AiSENCY 






In a copyrighted story that will appear in a forthcoming issue of RolUnq | 
Stone magazine (going to press next Monday), reporter Carl Bernstein details 
far more extensive CIA-use of the American news media than previously acknowledged 
by Agency officials publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress. 

■ // 

Bernstein reports that during the past 25 years more than 400 American 

V ’ 'I' 

journalists secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, 

i-i: ’ f 

according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. In many instances the jour- 

h . • • 4 . V ’• 

.. .v: ■ 

nalists performed tasks for the CIA with^.the consent of the management of 

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America's leading news-gathering organizations. 

Carl Bernstein, 33, formerly a reporter for the Washington Post, is the co- 
author of "All the President's Men" and "The Final Days. He began his inquiry 
into this subject over one year ago. 

Bernstein says journalists involved in the CIA program provided a full range 
of services to the Agency, from simple intelligence collection to helping re- 
cruit and direct spies in foreign countries. Some of the reporters involved 
were Pulitzer Prize winners and household names. Some received partial CIA 
payment for their work, almost always in cash. 

In addition, at least 25 news organizations provided jobs and credentials 
("journalistic cover") for full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists 
abroad. 












Rolling Stone/Bernstein/CIA, p.2 



Among those major media whose top executives lent cooperation to the CIA 
were CBS, ABC, NBC, the Associated Press, United Press International, Newsweek, 
Time Inc., The New York Times, Mutual Broadcasting System, Reuters, Copley News 
Service and the Hearst Newspapers, among others. 

The Agency's relationship with the New York Times was by far its most valuable 
among newspapers, according to CIA officials. Bernstein reports that the Times 
provided press credentials to approximately 10 undercover CIA employees, with 
the full approval of the late Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger. 

In the field, journalists were used to help recruit foreign agents, to con- 
vey instructions and dollars to foreign officials bought and controlled by the 
CIA, to acquire and evaluate information, and to plant false information with 
officials of foreign governments. Many signed secrecy agreements with the Agency 
pledging never to discuss their involvement. 

THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH COMMITTEE 

Although some details of CIA-press relationships have trickled out in recent 
years, neither media accounts nor congressional hearings have hinted at their 
extensive scale, Bernstein reports in Rolling Stone . 

During the 1976 CIA investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the 
true extent of the Agency's involvement with the media became apparent to several 
members of the committee, but was deliberately concealed from its full membership, 
the Senate and the public. The decision to misrepresent the dimensions of the 
situation was made after intensive lobbying from CIA officials. Bernstein reports 
on one such CIA-Senate meeting — an extraordinary dinner session at the Agency's 
headquarters in Langley, Virginia in late March, 1976. Those present included 
Senators Frank Church and John Tower, members of the conmittee staff, CIA 
Director George Bush and two other Agency officials. 

A Senator who was the object of the Agency's lobbying effort said later; 

' . 



Rolling Stone/Bernstein/CIA, p.3 



"From the CIA point of view this was the highest, most sensitive covert program 
of all." "There is quite an incredible spread of relationships, " reported 
Senate committee investigator William B. Bader. "You don't need to manipulate 
Time magazine, for example, because there are Agency people at the management 
level." 

PALEY. SULZBERGER. ALSQP BROTHERS AND OTHERS NAMED 

The origins of the Agency's intimate dealings with the press, Bernstein 
writes, are traceable to CIA director Allen Dulles, who saw that journalistic 
cover would give CIA operatives abroad a degree of access unobtainable under 
almost any other means. In the words of one high-level CIA official, "one 
journalist is worth 20 agents — he has access and can ask questions without 
arousing suspicion." 

In addition to numerous accredited correspondents and freelancers, there were 
perhaps a dozen well-known columnists and broadcast commentators whose relation- 
ship with the CIA went far beyond those normally maintained between reporters 
and their sources, according to Bernstein. 

These are referred to at the Agency as "known assets" and are considered 
receptive to the Agency's point of view. These included C*L. Sulzberger at the 
New York Times, Joseph Alsop and the late Stewart Alsop. 

In preparing his article for Rolling Stone . Carl Bernstein interviewed more 
than 35 former and present CIA officials, plus Senators and staff members of 
the Senate Intelligence Committee. He traces the close working relationship 
between former CIA Directors, beginning with Allen Dulles and John McCone, 
and news executives including CBS's William Paley, Newsweek 's Publisher the 
late Phillip Graham, The New York Times' Publisher the late Arthur Hays 
Sulzberger, the late Henry Luce of Time Inc., and James Copley of the Copley 
News Service. 















Rolling Stone/Bernstein/CIA, p.4 



CIA USE OF JOURNALISTS CONTINUES 

As for the possible continuing relationship between CIA and these major 
media, Bernstein reports that the Agency maintained ties with 75 to 90 jour- 
nalists at least until 1976, according to high-level CIA sources. He also cites 
an unpublished report by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired 
by Rep. Otis Pike; showing that at least fifteen news organizations were still 
providing cover for CIA operatives as of 1976. The Agency - press relationship, 
Bernstein writes, "continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation 
and deception," according to CIA sources. 

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EMBARGOED 



For Release 11:00 P.M. , E.D.T. , Sunday Septariber 11. 1977 



The CIA and The Press 
by Carl Bernstein 



Copyright (g)1977 by Rolling Stone. All Rights Reserved. 



Note: THE ENCLOSED STOTY MAY NOT HE REPRINTED. IT IS 
BEINj MADE AVAILABLE FOR PURPOSES OF BRIEF EXCERPTING 
QUOTATIONS AND OXnEmAL' BACKGBCIUND ONLY. 



This article will appear in its entirety in issue #250 
of Rolling Stone Marine on sale October 4th, 1977. 





RCLLING STCHE/BERNSTTEIN 



By CARL BEKNSTEIN 

©1977 BY ROLLING STONE, ALL RICJnS RESERVED. 



>/:* -1 I Vi- ■ 

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In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of America’s leading syndicated* 
colxinnists, went to the Philippines to cover an election. He did not 
go because he was asked to do so by his S 3 mdicate. He did not go 
because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his colunn. 
He went at the request of the CIA. 

Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the x>ast 
twenty-five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central 
Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. 
Some of these joumalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; 



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ROLLING STCNE/BERNSTEIN 
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some were explicit. There was cooperation, accomxxiation and overlap. 
Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services — from 
sinple intelligence collection to serving as go-betweens with spies 
in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notdxoks with' the ClA. ^. 
Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize 
winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ajxbassadors- 
without-port folio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign 

correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped 
their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the 
derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles; and, the smallest 
category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. 

In nany instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to 
perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America *s 
leading news-gathering organimtions. 

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were 
William Paley of the Coluntoia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of 
Time, Inc. , Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times . Philip 
Graham of the Washington Post , Barry Bingham Sr. of Jhe Loiil5gyiiie 
Courier- Journal , and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other 
organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American 
Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Conpany, the Associated 
Press, United Press Intei*national, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps- 
Hbward, Newswe^ magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the 



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RCLLING STQNE/BERTSTEIN 
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Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald- 
Tribune . 

By far the most valuable of these institutions, according to CIA 
officials, have been the New York Times , CBS and Time Inc. 

The CIA's use of the American nevs media has be^ much more 
extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed 
sessions with menfcers of Congress. The general outlines of what 
happened are indisputable; the specifics are harder to come by. CIA 
sources hint that a partictilar journalist was trafficking all over 
Eastern Europe for the Agency; the journalist says no, he just had 
lunch with the station chief. CIA sources say flatly that a well-known 
iii ABC correspondent worked for the Agency throu^ 1973; they refuse to 

f identify him. A high-level CIA official with a prodigious manory says 

that the New York Times provided cover for about ten CIA operatives 
between 1950 and 1966; he does not know who the agents were, or who in 
the newspap)er*s iranageroent made the arrangernents. 

The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press 
continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and 
deception for the following principal reasons: 

’•The use of journalists has been among the most productive means 
of intelligence-gathering employed by the CIA and continues today. 
Although the Agency has cut back sharply on the use of reporters since 
1973 (primarily as a result of pressure from the media), some 










ROLLING SfTCNE/EERNSTEIN 
d <L ■ 4 - 4 



♦Further investigation into the matter, CIA officials say, would 
inevitably reveal a series of enbarrassing relationships in the 1950s 
and 1960s with some of the most powerful organisations and individuals 
in American journalism. 

The Agency's special relationships with these organizations and ■ 

■■y 

other so-called "majors" in publishing and broadcasting enabled the CIA 
to post seme of its most valuable operatives abroad without exposure for 
more than two decades. In most instances. Agency files show, officials 
at the highest levels of the CIA (usually director or d^xity director) 
dealt personally with a single designated individual in the top 
man agement of the cooperating news organization. The aid furnished often 
took two forms: providing jobs and credentials ("journalistic cover" 

in Agency parlance) to CIA operatives about to be posted in foreign 
capitals; and lending the Agency the undercover services of reporters 
already on staff, including some of the best-known correspondents in the 
business. 

In the field, American journalists were used to help recruit and 
handle foreigners as agents; to acquire and evaluate information; and 
to plant false information with officials of foreign governments. Many 
signed secrecy agreements, pledging never to divulge anything about 
their dealings with the Agency; some signed enployment contracts; some 
were assigned case officers and treated with unusual deference. Others 
had less structured relationships with the Agency, even though the tasks 
they performed were similar: they were briefed by CIA personnel before 



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ROLLING SICNE/BERNSTEIN 
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trips abroad, debriefed afterward, and used as intermediaries with 
foreign agents. Appropriately, the CIA uses the term "r^rting" to 
describe nuch of what cooperating journalists did for the Agency. 

' We would ask them, 'Will 3 tou do us a favor?'" said a senior CIA 
official. "'We understand you're going to be in Yugoslavia. Have 
>' ■' paved all the streets? Where did you see planes? Were there any 

M:. signs of military presence? How many Soviets did you see? If you 

happen to meet a Soviet, get his name and spell it right Can you 

^ nieeting for us? Or relay a message?"' Many CIA officials 
regarded these helpful journalists as operatives; the journalists tend 
to see thenselves as trusted friends of the Agency who perfonned 
occasional favors in;the national interest. . 

"I'm proud they asked me and proud to have done it," says former 
syndicated columnist Joseph Alsop who, like his late brother, columnist 
Stewart Alsop, undertook clandestine tasks for the Agency. "The notion 
y that a newspaperman doesn't have a duty to his country is perfect balls." 

Fran the Agency's perspective, there was nothing untoward in such 
relationships, and any ethical questions are a matte» for the journalistic 
profession to resolve, not the intelligence comnunity. 

During the 1976 investigation of the CIA by the Senate Intelligence 
Committe, chaired by Senator Frank Church, the dimensions of the 
Agency's involvanent with the press became apparent to several manbers 
of the panel, as well as to two or three investigators on the staff. But 
top officials of the CIA, including former directors William Cblby and 

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ROLLING SrONE/BERNSTEIN 
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George Bush, persuaded the coimittee to restrict its inquiry into the 
matter and to deliberately misrgjresent the actual scope of the 
activities in its final report. The multi-volume report contains 
nine pages in which the use of journalists is discussed in deliberately 
vague and sometimes misleading terms. It makes no mention of the actual 
nunber of journalists who undertook covert tasks for the CIA. Nor 
does it adequately describe the role played by newspaper and broadcast 
executives in cooperating with the Agency. 

The Agency's dealings with the press began during the earliest 
stages of the Cold War. Allen Dulles, who became director of the CIA 
in 1953, sou^t to establish a recruit ing-and-cover capability within 
America's nost prestigious journalistic institutions. By operating 
under the guise of accredited news correspondents, Dulles believed CIA 
operatives abroad would be accorded a degree of access and freedom of 
movement unobtainable under almost any other type of cover. 

American publishers, like so many other corporate and institutional 
leaders at the time, were willing to coninit the resources of their 
coonpanies to the struggle against ’’global Cocnninisra.’' Accordingly, the 
traditional line separating the American press corps and government was 
often indistinguishable: rarely was a news agency used to provide cover 

for CIA operatives abroad without the knowledge and consent of either its 



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principal owner, publisher or senior editor. Thus, contrary to the 
notion that the CIA insidiously infiltrated the joiunalistic coninunity, 
there is ample evidence that America's leading publishers and news 
executives allowed themselves and their organizations to become 
handmaidens to the intelligence service. "Let's not pick on some poor 
reporters, for God's sake," William Colby exclaimed at one point to the 
Church Conniittee's investigators. "Let's 8° 'to the managanents. They 
were witting." In all, about twenty-five news organizations (including 
those listed at the beginning of this article) provided cover for the 
Agency. 

In addition to cover capability, Dulles initiated a "de-briefing" 
procedure under which American correspondents returning from abroad 
routinely enptied their notebooks and offered their impressions to 
Agency personnel. S\jch arrangements, continued by Dulles' successors 
to the present day, were made with literally dozens of news organizations. 
In the 1950s, it was not imccxnnon fdr returning reporters to be met at'^lk 



the ship by CIA officers. "There would be these guys from the CIA 
flashing ID cards and looking like they belonged at the Yale Club," 
said Hugh Morrow, a former Satxirday Evening Post correspondent vrtio is 
now press secretary to former vice-president Nelson Rockefeller. "It 
got to be so routine that 3 TOu felt a little miffed if you weren't asked." 
CIA officials almost always refuse to divulge the names of : ^ 

.. 4'r*' • ■ 

Journalists who have cxoperated with the Agency. They say it would be 
unfair to judge these individuals in a context different from the one that 



HDore- 



ROLLING STCNE/BERNSTEIN 
S-8-8-8 



spawned the relationships in the first place. 'There was a time when 
it wasn't considered a crime to serve your government," said one 
hifif^lsvel CIA official who makes no secret of his bitterness. "This 
all has to be considered in the context of the morality of the times, 
rather than against latter-day standards — and hypocritical standards 
at that." Many journalists who covered World War II were close to 
people in the Office of Strat^ic Seirvices, the wartime predecessor of 
the CIA; more in^xsrtant, they were all on the same side. When the war 
ended and many OSS officials went into the CIA, it was only natural 
that these relationships would continue. .Meanwhile, the first postwar 
generation of joinrnalists entered the profession; they shared the same 
political and professional values as their mentors. "You haH a gang of 
people who woilced together during World War II and never got over it," 
said one Agency official. "They were genuinely motivated and highly 
susceptible to intrigue and being on the inside. Then in the Fifties 
and Sixties there was a national codsensus about a national threat. 

The Vietnam War tore everything to pieces — shredded the consensus and 
threw it in the air." Another Agency official observed: "Many journalists 

didn’t give a second thougjit to associating with the Agency. But there 
was a point when the ethical issues which most people had sutmerged finally 
surfaced. Today, a lot of these guys vehemently deny that they had 
any relationship with the Agency.” 

From the outset the use of journalists was among the CIA’s most 
sensitive undertakings, with full knowledge restricted to the Director 



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9 - 9 - 9-9 



• V 




J . 
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of Central Intelligence and a few of his chosen deputies. Dulles 
and his successors were fearful of what would happen if a journalist- 
operative's cover was blown, or if details of the Agency's dealings 
with the press otherwise became public. As a result, contacts with the 
heads of news-gathering organizations were initiated by Dulles and 
succeeding directors of Central Intelligence; by the Deputy directors 
and division chiefs in charge of covert operations — Frank Wisner, 

Cord Meyer Jr., Richard Bissell, Desnond FitzGerald, Tracy Barnes, 

Thomas Karamessines and Richard Helms (himself a former UPI correspondent); 
and, occasionally, by others in the CIA hierarchy known to have an 
unusually close social relationship with a particular publisher or 
broadcast executive. 

James Angleton, wtio was recently removed as the Agency's head of 
counterintelligence operations, ran a conpletely independent groi?) of 
journalist-operatives who performed sensitive and frequently dangerous 
assignments; little is known about this groi?) for the slnple reason 
that Angleton deliberately kept no files. 

The CIA even ran a formal training program in the 1950s to teach 
its agents to be journalists. Intelligence officers were ^taught to 
make noises like reporters," explained a high CIA official, and were then 
placed in major news organizations with help from management. ^’These were 
the guys who went through the ranks and were told, * You* re going to be 
a jour n a li st, *** the CIA official said. Relatively few of the 400-soroe 
relationships described in Agency files followed that pattern, however; 
most involved persons were already bona fide journalists when they 

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ROLLING SrcNE/BERNSTEIN 
10 - 10 - 10-10 

began undertaMng tasks for the Agency. 

The Agency's relationships with journalists, as described in CIA 
files, include the following general categories: 

♦Legitimate, accredited staff marters of news organizations — 
usually reporters. This group includes many of the best-known joiumalists 
who carried out tasks for the CIA. The files show that the salaries 
paid to some r^»rters by newspaper and broadcast networks were 
supplemaited by nominal paymaits from the CIA, either in the fonn of 
retainers, travel expenses or outlays for specific services performed. 
Almost all the payments were made in cash, .("nie accredited category 
also incltides photographers, administrative personnel of foreign news 
bureaus and menijers of broadcast technical crews.) 

Two of the Agency's most valuable personal relationships in the 
1950s, according to CIA officials, were with reporters ^rtio covered 
Latin America — Jerry O'Leary of the Washington Star and Hal Hendrix 
of the Miami News , a Pulitzer Prize winner who became a high official 
of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. Hendrix 
was extremely helpful to the Agency in providing information about 
individuals in Miami's Cuban exile conmunity. O'Leary was considered 
a valued asset in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Agency files 
contain lengthy reports of both men's activities on behalf of the CIA. 

O'Leary maintains that his dealings were limited to the normal 
give-and-take that goes on between reporters abroad and their sources. 

CIA officials dispute the contention: "There's no question Jerry 

reported for us," said one. "Jerry did assessing and spotting [of 




ROLLING STCNE/BERNSTEIN 
11 - 11 - 11-11 



prospective agent^ but he was better as a reporter for us." 

Referring to O'Leary's denials, the official added: "I don't know 

wtoat in the world he's worried about unless he's wearing that nan tie 
of integrity the Senate comnittee put on you journalists." 

O'Leary attributes the difference of opinion to semantics. 

"I might call them up and say something like, 'Papa Doc has the clap, 
did you know that?' and they'd put. it in the file. "I don't consider 
that reporting for them .... It's useful to be friendly to them and, 
generally, I felt friendly to them. But I think they were more 
helpful to me than I was to them." O'Leary took particular deception 
to being described in the same context as Hendrix. "Hal was really 
doing work for them," said O'Leary. "I'm still with the Star . He 
ended vp at ITT." Hendrix could not be reached for conment. According 
to Agency officials, neither Hendrix nor O'Leary was paid by the CIA. 

♦Stringers* and freelancers. Most were payrolled by the Agency 
under standard contractual terms. 'Their journalistic credentials were 
often si 4 >plied by cooperating news organizations: some filed news 

’ ' 

stories; others reported only for the CIA. 

♦Etaployees of so-called CIA "proprietaries.” During the past 
twenty-five years, the Agency has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign 
press services, periodicals and newspapers — both English and foreign 
language — which provided excellent cover for CIA agents. One such 
publication was the Rome Daily American , forty percent of which was owned 
by the CIA until the 1970s. 

r -more- 

♦A stringer is a reporter who works for one or several news oi*ganizations 
on a piecework basis. 













ROLLING STQNE/BEENSTEIN 
12 - 12 - 12-12 

♦Editors, publishers and broadcast network executives. Ihe CIA's 
relationship with most news executives differed fundamentally frcra 
those with working reporters and stringers, who were much more subject 
to direction from the Agency. A few executives — Arthur Hays Sulzberger 
of the New Yoiic Times among them — signed secrecy agreements. But 
such formal understandings were rare: relationships between Agency 

officials and media executives were usually social — "The P and Q 
Street axis in Georgetown," said one soinrce. 'Tou don't tell 
William Paley to sign a piece of paper saying he won't fink." 

♦Colmmists and connentators. There are perhaps a dozen well-known 
coliamlsts and broadcast comnentators whose relationships with the CIA 
go far beyond those normally maintained betweai reporters and their 
sources. They are referred to at the Agency as "known assets" and can be 
counted on to perform a variety of undercover tasks; they are considered 
receptive to the Agency's point of view on various subjects. Three of 
the most wd-dely read columnists who tnaintained such ties with the Agency 
are C.L. Sul2±>erger of the New York Tiroes , Jos^h Alsop, anH the late 
Stewart Alsop, whose column appeared in the New York Herald-Tribune , 
th© Satui*day Evening Post and Newsweek . CIA files contain reports of 
specific tasks all three undertook. Sulzberger is still regarded as an 
active asset by the Agaicy. According to a senior CIA official, 'Toung 
Cy Sulzberger had some uses .... He signed a secrecy agreement because 
we gave him classified information .... There was sharing, give a-nri take. 
We'd say, 'We'd like to know this; if we tell you this will it help you 
get access to so-and-so?' Because of his access in Europe he had an 



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C^en Sesame. We'd ask him to just report: 'What did so-and-so say, 

what did he look like, is he healthy?' He was very eager, he loved 
to cooperate." On one occasion, according to several CIA officials, 
Sul 2 ±)erger was given a briefing paper by the Agency which ran alnost 
verbatim under the columnist's byline in the Times . "Cy came out and 
said, 'I'm thinking of doing a piece, can you give me sane background,'" 
a CIA officer said. "We gave it to Cy as a background piece and Cy 
gave it to the printers and put his name on it." Sulzberger denies 
that any such incident occurred. 

Sulzberger claims that he was never formally "tasked" by the Agency 
and that he "vould never get caught near the spook business." 

He recalls being asked to sign a secrecy agreement but cannot remarber 
with certainty if he signed it. "My relations were totally informal — 

I had a good many friends," he said. "I'm sure they consider me an 
asset. Th^ can ask me questions. They find out you're going to Slobovia 
and they say, "Cam we talk to you wh^ you get back? ' .... Or they ' 11 
want to know if the head of the Ruritanian government is suffering from 

psoriasis. But I never took an assignment from one of those guys 

I've known Wisner well, and Helms and even Mdjone /former CIA director 
John McCone/ I used to play golf with. But they'd have had to be 
awfully subtle to have used me. " 

Su lzb erger says he was asked to sign the secrecy agreement in the ’y'i - 

. 

1950s. ”A guy came around and said, *You are a responsible newsnan and 

. 

we need you to sign this it we are going to show you anything classified. * 

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ROLLING STONE/EERNSTEIN 

14 _ 14 _ 14_14 



I said I didn't want to get entangled and told them, 'Go to ny uncle 
(Arthur Hays Sulzberger, then publisher of the New York Tlmes ^ and if 
he says to sign it I will. '" His uncle subsequently signed such an 
agreement, Sulzberger said, and he thinks he did too, thnngh he is 
unsure. "I don't know, twenty-sane years is a long time." He described 
the v(toole question as "a bubble in a bathtub." 

Ste^vart Alsop's relationship with the Agency was even more 
extensive than Sulzberger's. One official who served at the hipest levels 
in the CIA said flatly: "Stew Alsop was a CIA agent." An eqxially f 

senior official refused to define Alsop's relationship with the Agency 
except to say it was a foimal one. Other sources said that Alsop was 
particularly helpful to the Agency in discussions with officials of 
foreign govenraents — asking questions to which the CIA was sedting 
answers, planting misinfoimation advantageous to American policy, 
assessing opportunities for CIA recruitment of well-placed foreigners. ■ 

9r 

"Absolute nonsense," said Joseph Alsop of the notion that his 
brother was a CIA ag«it. "I was closer to the Agency than Stew was, 
thovigh Stew was very close. I daresay he did perform so*”© t.g.<;icg — he 
just did the correct thing as an American .... Ihe Founding Fathers 
Cof the CIA] were close personal friends of ours. Dick Bissell ^former 
CIA deputy director"] was ny oldest friend, from childhood. It was a 
social thing, my dear fellow. I never received a dollar, I never signed 
a secrecy agreement . I didn ' t have to .... I've done things for than 
when I thought they were the right thing to do. I call it ckDing my duty 



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as a citizen.** 

Alsop is willing to discuss on the record only two of the tasks 
he undertook: a visit to Laos in 1952 at the behest of Frank Wisner, 

who felt other American r^»rters were filing pro-Cooinunist dispatches 
about uprisings there; and a visit to the Philippines in 1953 when the 
CIA thought his presence there might affect the out cane of an election. 
**Des FitzGerald urged me to go,** Alsop recalled. **It would be less 
likely that the left could steal the election if the eyes of the world 
were on them. I stayed with the anbassador and wrote about what 
happened. ** 

Alsop maintains that he was never manipulated by the Agency. 

**You can't get entangled so they have leverage on you,** he said. "But 
what I wrote was true. My view was to get the facts. If someone in the 
Agency was wrong, I stopped talking to them — they'd given me phony 
goods." On one occasion, Alsop said, Richard Helms authorized the head 
of the Agency's anal 3 rtical branch to provide Alsop with information that 
indicated that the war in Vietnam might not be won. "The analytical 
side of the Agency was dead wrong on the war," said^sop. "I stopped 
talking to them." Today, he sa 3 rs, '"People in our business wDuld be 
outraged at the kinds of suggestions that were made to me. They 
shouldn't be. The CIA did not open itself at all to people it did not 
trust. Stew and I were trusted, and I'm proud of it." 

***** 



Uurky details of CIA relationships with individuals and news 
organizations have trickled out since 1973, when it was first disclosed 















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ROLLING STONE/BERNSTEIN 
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that the CIA had, on occasion, aiployed reporters. Those reports, 
couijined with new information, serve as casebook studies of the Agency's 
use of journalists for intelligeice purposes. They include: 

♦The New York Tijiies . The Agency’s relationship with the Times 
was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. 
From 1950 to 1966, aibout ten CIA enployees were provided Tunes cover 
under arrangements approved by the newspaper's late publisher, Arthur 
Hays SuLdaerger. The cover arrangements were part of a gaieral Times 
policy — set by Sulaberger — to provide assistance to the CIA whenever 
possible. 

Sulzberger was especially close to Allen Dulles and, later, to John 
McCone, the CIA's director from 1962 to 1965. McCone, a businessman who 
appreciated meticulous recorct-keeping, regularly wrote memoranda of hi s 
conversations, including those in which Sulzberger agreed to allow 
undercover CIA enployees to use Times credentials. 

"At that level of contact it wAs the mighty talking to the mighty," 
said a hi^-level CIA official who was present at some of the discussions. 
"There was an agreement in principle that, yes indeed, we would help 

iT 

each other. The question of cover came up on several occasions. It 
was agreed that the actual arrangements would be handled by subordinates . . 
The mighty didn't want to know the specifics; they wanted plausible 
deniability." 

The CIA enployees who received Times credentials posed as stringers 
for the paper abroad and worked as members of clerical staffs in the 



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ROLLING STCNE/BEENSTEIN 
17-17-17-17 

Times ' foreign bureaus. Most were American; two or three were foreigners. 

CIA officials cite two reasons why the Agency's working relation- 
ship with the Times was closer and more extensive than with any other 
paper: the fact that the Times maintained the largest foreign news 

operation in American daily Journal i.<3n; and the close personal ties 
between the men \rtio ran both institutions. On his trips to Washington 
Sulzberger dined at home with McCone; on McCone's trips to New York, 
he lunched with Sulzberger at the Times . On those occasions the subject 
of hew the Times could better help the Agency was frequently discussed, 
according to others who were present. 

Sulzberger informed a number of reporters and editors of his 
general policy of cooperation with the Agency. "We were in touch with 
them — they'd talk to us and some cooperated," said a CIA official. 

The cooperation usiaally involved passing on infonnation and "spotting" 
prospective agents among foreigners. 

Sulzberger signed a secrecy agreement with the CIA in the 1950s, 
according to CIA officials — a fact confirmed by C.L. Sulzberger, the ■ 
late publisher's nephew. However, there are varying^interpretations of 
the purpose of the agreemait: C.L. Sulzberger says it represented nothing 

more than a pledge not to disclose classified infonnation martp available 
to the publisher. That contention is supported by some Agency officials. 
Others in the Agency maintain that the agreanent represented a pledge 
never to reveal any of the Times ' dealings with the CIA, e^>eclally those 
involving cover. And there are those who note that, because all cover 



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ROLLING STCNE/HERNSTEIN 
18-18-18-18 

arrangements are classified, a secrecy agreement wauld automatically 
apply to them. 

Attempts to find out which individuals in the Times organization 
made the actiml arrangements for providing credentials to CIA personnel 
have been unsuccessful. In a letter to reporter Stuart Loory in 1974, 
Turner Catledge, managing editor of the Times from 1951 to 1964, wrote 
that approaches by the CIA had been r^uffed by the newspaper: 

"I knew nothing about any involvement with the CIA... of any of our 
foreign correspondents on the New York Times . I heard many times of 
overtures to our men by the CIA, seeking to use their privileges, 
contacts, inmunities and, shall we say, superior intelligence in the 
sordid business of ^ying and informing. If any one of than succuribed 
to the blandishments or cash offers, I was not aware of it. Repeatedly 
the CIA and other hush-hush agencies sought to make arrangements for 
'cooperation' even with Times management, especially during or soon 
after World War II, but we always resisted. Our motive was to protect 
our credibility." 

According to Wayne Phillips, a former Times refiorter, the CIA 
invoked Arth\u* Hays Sulzberger's name when it tried to recruit him as 
an undercover operative in 1952, wliile he was studying at Columbia 
University's Russian Institute. Phillips said an Agency official told 
him that the CIA had "a working arrangement" with the publisher in 
which other reporters abroad had been placed on the Agency's payroll. 

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t 



1 









RCLLING SnCNE/BERNSTEIN 
19-19-19-19 

Phillips, who renained at the Times until 1961, later obtained CIA 
documents under the Freedom of Information Act fltoich show that the 
Agency intended to develop him as a clandestine "asset" for use abroad. 

On January 31st, 1976, the Times carried a brief story describing 
the CIA's attenpt to recruit Phillips. It quoted Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, 
the present publisher, as follows: "I never heard of the Times 

being approached, either in my capacity as publisher or as the son of 
the late Mr. Sulzberger." The Times story, written by John M. Crewdson, 
also reported that Arthur Hays Sulzberger told an unnamed former 
correspondent that he might be approached by the CIA after arriving at a 
new post abroad. Sulzberger told him that he was not "under any 
obligation to agree," the story said, and that the publisher himself 
would be "happier" if he refused to cooperate. "But he left it sort 
of up to me," the Times qixjted its former reporter as saying. "The 
message was if I really wanted to do that, okay, but he didn't think 
it appropriate for a Times correspondent." 

C.L. Sulzberger, in a tel^hone interview, said he had no 
knowledge of any CIA personnel using Times cover or pf rqorters for 
the paper working actively for the Agency. He was the paper's chief of 
foreign service from 1944 to 1954 and expressed doubt that his uncle would 
have approved such arrangements. More typical of the late publisher, 
said Sulzberger, was a promise made to Allen Dulles' brother, John 
Foster, then secretary of st?ite, that no Times staff member would be 
pemitted to accept an invitation to visit comnunist China without 
John Foster Dulles' consent. Such an invitation was extended to the 

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ROLLING SrOSE/BERNSTEIN 
^ ^ 20 - 20 - 20-20 



publisher's nephew in the 1950s; Arth\jr Sulzberger forbid him to accept 
it. "It was seventeen years before another Times correspondent 
was invited," recalled C.L. Sulzberger. 

♦The Columbia Broadcastii^ S 3 rstem. CBS was unquestionably the 
CIA's most valuable broadcasting asset. CBS president William Paley 
and Allen Dulles were extremely close. Over the years, the network 
provided cover for CIA enployees, including at least one well-known 
foreign correspondent and several stringers; it supplied outtakes of 
newsfilm to the CIA;* established a formal channel of conmunication 
between the Washington bureau chief and the Agency; gave the Agency 
access to the CBS newsfilm library; and allowed reports by CBS 
correspondents to the Washington and New York newsrooms to be routinely 
monitored by the CIA. Once a year during the 1950s and early 1960s, 

CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for a private dinner and 
briefing. 



The details of the CBS-CIA arrangements were worked out by 
subordinates of both Dulles and Paley. "The head of the company doesn't 
want to know the fine points, nor does the director V said a CIA official. 
"Both designate aides to work that out. It keeps them above the battle." 
Dr. Frank Stanton, for many years president of the network, was aware 
of the general arrangements Paley made with Dulles and later McCone — 



including those for cover, according to CIA officials. (Stanton, in an 
interview last year, said he could not recall any cover arrangements.) 



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♦From the ClA's point of view, access to newsfilm, outtakes and pholK> 
libraries is a matter of extreme lnportance. The Agency's photo archive 
is probably the greatest on earth; its graphic sources inclvide satellites, 
photo-reconnaissance planes, miniature cameras. . .and the American press. 
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Agency obtained carte blanche borrowing 
privileges in the photo libraries of literally dozens of American newspapers, 
m ag azine s and television outlets. For obvioias reasons, the CIA also assigned 
high priority to the recruitment of photojoumalists, particularly foreign- 
based members of network camera crews. ' • 









ROLLING STONE/HERNSTEIN 
21 - 21 - 21-21 



But Paley's designated contact for the Agency was Sig Mickelson, 
president of CBS News between 1954 and 1961. Mickelson is now head 
of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, both of which were associated 
with the CIA for many years. 

In 1976, CBS News president Richard Salant ordered an in-house 
investigation of the network's dealings with the CIA. (Sane of its 
findings were first disclosed in a recent dispatch in the Los Angeles Times 
by Robert Scheer.) But Salant 's report makes no mention of his own 
extensive dealings with the Agency, which continued into the 1970s. 

Many details about the CBS-CIA relationship were found in Mickelson 's 
files by two investigators for Salant. Among the documents they found was 
a SepteiEber 13th, 1957, m6mo to Mickelson from Ted Kbop, CBS News bureau 
chief in Wa shin gton from 1948 to 1961. It describes a phone call to 
Kbop from Colonel Stanley Grogan of the CIA: "Grogan phoned to say that 

Reeves QuxDther CIA official] is going to New York to be in charge of the 
CIA contact office there and will call to see you and some of your 
confreres. Grogan says normal activities will continue to channel through 
the Washington office of CBS News." The r^rt to Sjlant also states: 
"Further Investigation of Mickelson 's files reveals some details of the 
relationship between the CIA and CBS news. . . . Two key administrators 
of this relationship were Mickelson and Kbop.... The main activity 

appeared to be the delivery of CBS newsfilm to the CIA In addition 

there is evidence that during 1964 to 1971 film material, including some 
outtakes, were st^jplied by the CBS Newsfilm Library to the CIA through 



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ROLLING STONE/BERNSTEIN 
22 - 22 - 22-22 

and at the direction of Mr. Kbop*. ... Notes in Mr. Mickelson's 

files indicate that the CIA used CBS films for training All of the 

above Mickelson activities were handled on a confidoitial basis without 
mentioning the words Central Intelligence Agency. The films were sent 
to individuals at post office box nurbers and were paid for by individual, 

not government, checks ” Mickelson also regularly sent the CIA 

an internal fTRS newsletter, according to the report. 

Salant's investigation led him to conclude that Frank Kearns, a 
CBS-TV reporter from 1958 to 1971, "was a CIA guy who. got on the payroll 
sora^iow through a CIA contact with somebody at CBS." Kearns has denied 
the charge. But according to CIA officials, both Kearns and Austin 
Goodrich, a CBS stringer, were undercover CIA employees, hired by the 
network under arrangements approved by Paley. 

last year a spokeanan for Paley denied a CBS rgxort by former 
coxre^ondent Daniel Schorr that Mickelson and he had discussed Goodrich's 
CIA status during a meeting with two Agency r^resentatives in 1954. 

The spokeanan claimed that Paley had no knowledge that Goodrich had 
worked for the CIA. "When I moved into the job 1 v/Ss told by Paley 
that there was an ongoing relationship with the CIA," Mi c k elson said 
in a recent interview. "He introduced me to two agents who he said 

*On April 3rd, 1961, Koop left the Vfashington Bureau to become head of 
the CBS, Inc. 's. Government Relations Department — a position he held 
until his retirement on March 31st, 1972. Koop, who worked as a d^juty 
in the Censorship Office in World War II, continued to deal with the CIA 
in his new position according to CBS sources. 

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SIX!)^CE/E(ER^^STEIN 






»ul. ,«ep IP touch. »h ai, ^ 

^xlh, at.apse.eato. I aseoned thlo ,ep a aottp. relattopship at the 

tl«. IMS «s at the height of the Chid »aa and I assuned the 

ccdsppicatlons tedla .ere ccoperatipg - though the Goodrich tetter 

was cooprcmising. " 

At the headquarters of CBS Ne^ m New Yorh. Paley's coopezation 

wath the CIA is taken for grazrted by nany news executives and reporters. 

despite the denials. Paley. 76. was not interviewed by Salant's 

investigators, "it wouldn't do any eood " «sniH nno 

uu any good, said one CBS executive 

"It is the Slagle subject about ehlch his memry has failed. 

SMaat discussed his o™ coptacts rith the CU, apd the fact that 
he contlpued .spy of his predecessor's practices, Ip ap Ipterylee «th 
reporter last year. The contacts, he said, began in February 1961 

"wben I got a phone call fidin a CIA nan who said he » „• 

said he had a working relation- 

Ship «th Slg Mlchelsop. Ihe nap said, 'Your bosses w all about It 
i>ccordlpg to Sal.Pt, the CIA repr^septatlve ashed that CBS coptlpue to 
-PPly the Aget^ aith correspopdents 

aaailable for debrleflpg by Agency officials. Said Salapt; "I said 

bO OP talMpg to the reporters, apd let thee, see broadcast tapes, but 

bd outtahes. IMS aept op for a otadoer of years - ipto the early 
Seventies." 

IP 1964 and 1965, Salapt seryed op a supersecret CIA task force »Mch 
e^^lcred aathcds of bea^ Ad^..^ ^ 

-nore- 








HOLLDC stone/bee?notein 

24 - 24 - 24-24 



Oiina. The other m®bers of the four-naii study team ^re Zbigaiav 
Brzezinski, then a professor at Columbia University; William Griffith. 

en Professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology; and John Hayes, then vice president of the Washington Post 
Conpany for radio-TV.* The principal governnent officials associated 
with the project were Cord Meyer of the CIA; McGeorge Bundy, then 
special assistant to the president for National Security; Leonard 
Marks, then director of the USIA; and Bill Moyers, then special 
assistant to President Johnson and now a CBS corre^ndent. 

Salant-s involvanent in the project began with a call from 
I^nard Marks, "who told me the White House wanted to form a 
conmittee of four people to make a study of U.S. overseas broadcasts 
behind the Iron Curtain." When Salant arrived in Washington for the first 
meeting he was told that project was CIA-sponsored. "Its purpose." 
he said, "was to detennine how best to set up short-wave broadcasts into 
Red Oilna." Acconpanied by a CIA officer named Paul Henzie. the 
comnittee of four subsequently traveled around the wirld inspecting 
facilities run by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (both CIA-run 
operations at the time), the Voice of America and A;^ Forces Radio. 

After more than a year of study, they submitted a report to Moyers 
recornnending that the government establish a broadcast service, run 
by the Voice of America, to be beamed at People's Republic of China. 



and N ewsweek magazines. According to CIA and Senate sources. 
Agency files contain written agreenents with former foreign correspondem 

L sourc e..; 

Fbst Cocuanv iCa+h=^ r °bairman of the board of the Washington 
^J^r^assignment. he said. Participants in the project signed secrecy 







HtXLING STCNE/BERNSTEIN 
25-25-25-25 

refused to say whether the CIA has ended all its associations with 
individuals ^rtio work for the two publications. Allen Dulles often 
interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of 
Time and Life nagazines, who readily allowed certain inetrbers of his 
staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials 
for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic ejqjerience. 

For many years. Luce's personal emissary to the CIA was C.D. Jackson, 
a Time, Inc., vice-president \dio was publisher of Life magazine from 
I960 until his death in 1964. While a Time executive, Jackson coauthored 
a CIA-sponsored study reconroending reorganization of the American 
intelligence services in the early 1950s. Jackson, whose Time-Life 
service was intem 5 >ted by a one-year White House tour as an assistant 
to President Dwi^t Eisenhower, approved specific arrangements for 
providing CIA employees with Time-Life cover. Some of these arrangements 
were made wd.th the knowledge of Lucy's wife, Clare Boothe. Other 
arrangem^ts for Time cover, according to CIA officials (including 
those ^o dealt with Luce), were made with the knowledge of Hedley 
Donovan, now editor-in-chief of Time, Inc. Donovan,*who took over 
editorial direction of all Time, Inc. , publications in 1959, denied ^ 
in a telQ)bone interview that he knew of any such arrangarents. "I was 
never approached and I'd be amazed if Luce approved such arrangements," 
Donovan said. "Harry Luce had a very scri 5 >ulous regard for the difference 
between journalism and government." 

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine's foreign correspondents 
attended CIA "briefing" dinners similar to those the CIA laid on for CBS. 




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I 



ROLLING OTCNE/HERNSTEIN 
26-26-26-26 



And Luce, according to CIA officials, made it a regular practice 
to brief Dulles or other high Agency officials when he retiimed frcrn 
his frequent trips abroad. Luce and the men who ran his magazines in the 
1950s and 1960s encouraged their foreign correspondents to provide 
help to the CIA, particulaurly in terms of information that might be 
useful to the Agency for intelligence purposes or recruiting foreigners. 

At Newsweek . Agency sources reported, the CIA formally engaged the 
services of several foreign correspondents and stringers under arrangements 
approved by senior editors at the magazine. Newswe^ 's stringer in Rome 
in the mid-Fifties made little secret of the fact that he worked for the 
CIA. Malcolm Muir, Newsweek 's editor from its founding in 1937 until 
its sale to the Washington Post Company in 1961, said in a recent 
interview that his dealings with the CIA were limited to private briefings 
he gave Allen Dulles after trips abroad and arrangements he approved for 
regular debriefing of Newsweek correspondents by the Agency. He said 
that he had never provided cover for CIA operatives, but that others ^ 
high in the Newswe^ organization might have done so without his 
knowledge. ^ 

"I would have thought there might have been stringers who were 
agents, but I didn't know who they were," said Muir. "I do t hink in 
those days the CIA kept pretty close touch with all responsible reporters. 
Whenever I heard something that I thou^t mi^t be of interest to Allen 
Dulles , I'd call him up. . . . At one point he appointed one of his CIA 
men to keep in regular contact with our reporters, a chap that I knew but 
whose name I can't remember. I had a nurrber of friends in Allen Dulles' 

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ROLLING STONE/BERNSTEIN 
27-27-27-27 






Kr- 



i* 



organization." Muir said that Harry Kern, Newsweek 's foreign editor 
from 1945-56 and Ernest K. Lindley, the magazine's Washington bureau 
chief during the same period, "regularly checked in with various 
fellows in the CIA." 

"To the best of my knowledge," ^id Harry Kern, "nobody at 
Newsweek worked for the CIA .... The informal relationship was there. 

Why have anybotfy sign anything? What we knew we told than [the CIA^ and 

the State Department When I went to Washington, I would talk to 

Foster or Allen Dulles about wbat was going on. ... We thoug^it it was 
adnirable at the time. We were all on the same side." CIA officials say 
that Kern's relationship with the Agency was extensive. In 1956, he 
left Newswe^ to run Foreign Reports , a Washington-based newsletter 
whose subscribers Kem refuses to identify. 

Ernest Lindley, wtoo remained at Newsweek until 1961, said in an 
interview that he regularly consulted with Dulles and other high CIA 
officials before going abroad and Isriefed them upon his return. 

"Allen was very helpful to me and I tried to reciprocate \rtien I could," 
he said. "I'd give him ny Inpressions of people I'd met oversesLS. 

Once or twice he asked me to brief a large group of intelligence people, 
when I came back from the Asian-African conference in 1955, for example ; 
they mainly wanted to know about various people . m 

As Washington binreau chief, Lindley said he learned from Malcolm Muir 
that the magazine's stringer in Southeastern Europe was a CIA contract 
enployee — given credentials under arrangements worked out with the 
m a n age me nt. "I remember it came up — vbether it was a good idea to keep 
this person from the Agency; eventually it was decided to discontinue the 
association," Lindley said. 



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ROLLING STONE/BERNSTEIN 
28-28-28-28 

When N&vsweek was purchased by the Washington Post Ccmpjiny, 
publi^er Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the 
CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to 
CIA sources. "It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you 
could get help from," said a former deputy director of the Agency. 

"Frank Wisner dealt with him." Wisner, deputy director of the CIA 
from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in 1965, was the Agency's 
premier orchestrator of "black" operations, including many in which 
journalists were involved. (Wisner liked to boast of his "mighty 
Wurlitzer," a wondrous propaganda instrument he built and played with 
help from the press.) Phil Graham was probably Wisner 's closest friend. 
Hbwever, Graham, who conmitted suicide in 1963, apparently knew little 
of the specifics of any cover arrangements with Newsweek . CIA sources 
said. 

In 1965-66, an accredited Newsweek stringer in the Far East was 
in fact a CIA contract enployee earfiing an ann ual salary of $10,000 
from the Agency, according to Robert T. Wood, then a CIA officer in the 
Hong Kong station. Seme Newsweek correspondents and stringers continued 
to m a in t ain formal ties with the Agency intb the 1970s, CIA sources said. 

Information about Agency dealings with the Washington Post newspaper 
is extranely sketchy. According to CIA officials, some Post stringers 
have been CIA enployees, but these officials say they do not know if 
anyone in the Post management was aware of the arrangerooits. 

All editors-in-chief and managing editors of the Post since 1950 
say they knew of no foimal Agency relationships with either stringers or 

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ROLLING STCNE/BERNSTEIN 
29-29-29-29 



ment)ers of the Post staff. ”If anything was done it was done by Phil 
without our knowledge,” said one. Agency officials, meanwhile, make 
no claim that Post staff members have had covert affiliations with the 
Agency while working for the paper. ♦ 

Katharine Graham, Philip Graham^ s widow and the current publisher 
of the Post , says she has never been informed of any CIA relationships 
with either Post or Newsweek personnel. In November of 1973, Mrs. Gra h a m 
called William Colby and asked if any Post stringers or staff members 
were associated with the CIA. Colby assured her that no staff members 
were employed by the Agency but refused to discuss the question of 
stringers. 

♦The Tn^is[vil le-Courier Journal . From Decenber 1964 until March ,1965, 
a CIA undercover operative named Robert H. Campbell worked on the 
Courier- Journal . According to hi^i-level CIA soxirces, Campbell was 
hired by the paper under arrangements the Agency made with Norman E. Isaacs, 
Iben executive editor of the Courier- Journal . Barry Bingham Sr., then 
publisher of the paper, also had knowledge of the arrangements, the 
sources said. Both Isaacs and Bingham have denied knowing that Campbell 
was an intelligence agent when he was hired. ^ 

The cooplex saga of Canpbell*s hiring was first revealed in a 

Courier-Journal story written by James P. Herzog on March 27th, 1976, 

during the Senate cornnittee*s investigation. Herzog's account began: 

"When 28-year-old Robert H. Campbell was hired as a Courier-Journal 

reporter in December 1964, he couldn't t3^ and knew little about news 

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♦Philip Geyelin, editor of the Post editorial page, worked for the Agency 
before joining the Post . 






ROLLING SimE/BERNSTEIN 
30-30-30-30 

writing." The account then quoted the paper's former managin g 
editor as saying that Isaacs told him that Canpbell was hired as a 
result of a CIA request: "Norman said when he was in Washington 

[jLn 1964J he had been called to lunch with seme friend of his who was with 
the CIA Quid thatj] he wanted to send this young fellow down to get 
him a little knowledge of newspapering. " All aspects of Campbell's 
hiring were hi^ily unusual. No effort had been made to check his 
credentials, and his enployment records contained the following two 
notations: "Isaacs has files of correspondence and investigation of this 

man," and "Hired for tenporary work — no referaice checks coipleted 
or needed." 

The level of Canpbell's joirmalistic abilities apparently 
remained consistent during his stint at the paper. "The stuff that 
Canpbell turned in was almost unreadable," said a former assistant 
city editor. One of Canpbell's major reportorial projects was a 
feature about wooden Indians. It w&s never published. During his 
taiure at the paper, Canpbell frequented a bar a few steps from the office 
where, on occasion, he reportedly confided to fellow drinkers that he 
was a CIA enployee. 

According to CIA sources, Canpbell's tour at the Courier- Jourpa i 
was arranged to provide him with a record of journalistic experience that 
would enhance the plausibility of future reportorial cover and teach 
him something about the newspaper business. The Courier-Jornnai 'g 
investigation also turned up the fact that before caning to Louisville 
he bad worked briefly for the Hbmell, New York, Ev«^ning Trib»>^e , 



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ROLLING STCNE/BERJ^TEIN 
31-31-31-31 



published by Freedom News, Inc. CIA sources said the Agency had 
made arrangements with that paper's management to enploy Canpbell.* 

At the Courier-Journal . Canpbell was hired under arrangements 
made with Isaacs and approved by Bingham, say CIA and Senate sources. 

"We paid the Coiirier-Joumal so they could pay his salary," said 
an Agency official who was involved in the transaction. Responding 
by letter to these assertions, Isaacs, who left Louisville to become 
president and publisher of the Wilmington (Delaware) News & Journal , 
said: "All I can do is repeat the simple truth — that never, under 

any circumstances, or at any time, have I ever knowingly hired a 
government agent. I've also tried to dredge ny memory, but 

Campbell's hiring meant so little to me that nothing emerges 

None of this is to say that I couldn't have been 'had.'" Barry Bingham Sr. 
said last year in a tel^hone interview that he had no specific memory 
of Canpbell 's hiring and denied that he knew of any arrangements 
between the newspaper's management and the CIA. However, CIA officials 
said that the Coiirier- Journal , through contacts with Bingham, provided 
other unspecified assistance to the Agency in the 1960s and 1960s. 

The Courier- Journal ' s detailed, front-page account of Carnpbell's hiring 
was initiated by Barry Bingham Jr. , who succeeded his father as editor 
and publisher of the paper in 1971. The article is the only major piece 

-more- 

^Louis Buisch, president of the publishing company of the Homell New 
York Evening Tribune , told the Coxirier-Joumal in 1976 that he 
remen4)ered little about the hiring of Robert Cami*)ell. 'He wasn't there 
very long, and he didn't make much of an impression," said Buisch, who has 
since retired from active management of the newspaper. 









ROLLING STCNE/BE3tt®TEIN 
32-32-32-32 

of self-investigation by a newspaper that has appeared on this 
subject.* 

♦The American Broadcasting Coopany, and the National Broadcasting 
Company. According to CIA officials, ABC continued to provide cover for 
some CIA operatives througii the 1960s. One was Sam Jaffee whom CIA 
officials described as a contract enployee. In addition, another 
well-known network correspondent performed covert tasks for the Agency. 

At the time of the Senate hearings. Agency officials serving at the 
highest levels refused to say whether the CIA was still maintaining 
active relationships with marbers of the ABC News organization. All 
cover arrangements were made with the knowledge of ABC executives, the 
sources said. 

They professed to know few specifics about the Agency's relationships 
with NBC, except that several foreign correspondents of the network 
undertook some assignments for the Agency in the 1950s and 1960s. "It 
was a thing people did then," said Tlichard Wald, president of NBC News 
since 1973. "I wouldn't be sinprised if people here — including some 
of the correspondents in those days — had connections with the Agency." 

♦The Copley Press, and its subsidiary, the Copley News Service. 

This relationship, first disclosed publicly by reporters Joe Trento and 
Dave Roman in Penthouse magazine, is said by CIA officials to have been 
among the Agency's most productive in terms of getting "outside" cover 
for its enployees. Copley owns nine newspapers in California and Illinois — 

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♦Probably the most thoughtful article on the subject of the press and 
the CIA was written by Stuart H. Loory and appeared in the Septarber- 
October, 1974 issue of Colxinbia Joumalian Review. 




ROLLING STCNE/HERNSIEIN 
33-33-33-33 



among them the San Diego Union and Evening Tribune . The Trento-Roman 
account, which was financed by a grant from the Fund for Investigative 
Journalism, asserted that at least twenty-three Copley News Service 
aiployees perfonned work for the CIA.. "The Agency's involvement 
with the Copley organization is so extensive that it's almost 
Inpossible to sort out," said a CIA official who was asked about the 
relationship late in 1976. Other Agency officials said then that 
James S. Copley, the chain's owner until his death in 1973, personally 
made most of the cover arrangements with the CIA. 

According to Trento and Roman, Copley personally volunteered his 
news service to then-president Eisenhower to act as "the eyes and ears" 
against "the Comnunist threat in Latin and Central America" for "our 
intelligence services." James Copley was also the guiding hand behind 
the Inter-American Press Association, a CIA-funded organization with 
heavy membership among right-wing Latin Anerican newspaper editors. 

■•Other "major" news organizatins. According to Agency officials, 

CIA files docuneit additional "cover" arrangements with the following 
news-gathering organizations — among others: the Nfew York Herald-Tribune , 

the Satiirday Evening Post . Scripps-Hbward Newspapers, the Hearst 
Corporation (Seymour K. Freiden, Hearst 's current London bureau chief and 
former Herald Tribune editor and correspondent, has been identified as 

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BCLLING STDNE/BERNSTEIN 
34-34-34-34 



a CIA enployee by CIA scairces), Associated Press*, United Press 
International, Reuters and the Miami Herald . 

"And that's just a snail part of the list," in the words of one 
official who served in the CIA hierarchy. Like many sources, this 
official said that the only way to end the uncertainties about aid 
furnished the Agency by journalists is to disclose the contents of the 
CIA files — a course opposed by almost adl of thirty-five present and 
former CIA officials interviewed over the course of a year. 



t**Wes'<5allagher, general manager of the Associated Press from 1962 to 
1976, takes vigorous exception to the notion that the Associated Press 
might have aided the Agency. "¥e've always stayed clear of the CIA; 

I woiHd have fired an3?body who worked for them. We don't even let 
our people debrief." At the time of the first disclosures that 
reporters had worked for the CIA, Galla^er went to Colby. "We tried 
to find out names. All he would say was that no full-time staff 
member of the Associated Press was employed by the Agency. We talked 
to Bush. He said the same thing." Gallagher suggested that the 
Agency might have placed its personnel in Associated Press bureaus 
without consulting the management of the wire service. But Agency 
officials Insist that they were able to make cover arrangements 
through someone in the vgjper management levels of Associated Press, 
whom they refuse to identify.) 






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ROLLING STONE/BERNSTEIN 

35 - 35 - 35-35 



COLBY COTS HIS LOSSES 

The CIA's use of Journalists continued virtually unabated 
until 1973 when, In response to public disclosure that the Agency 
had secretly enployed American reporters, William Colby began 
scaling down the program. In his public statements, Colby con- 
veyed the Lipresslon that the use of Journalists had been minimal 
and of limited lnportance to the Agency. 

He then Initiated a series of moves Intended to convince 
the press. Congress and the public that the CIA had gotten out 
of the news business. But according to Agency officials, Colby 
had In fact thrown a protective net around his most valuable In- 
telligence assets in the Journalistic community. He ordered his 
deputies to maintain Agency ties with Its best Journalist contacts 
while severing formal relationships with many regarded as Inactive, 
relatively unproductive or only marginally Important. In review- 
Ing Agency files to comply with Colby's directive, officials found 
that many Journalists had not performed useful functions for the 
CIA In years. Such relationships, perhaps as many ^s 100, were 
terminated between 1973 and 1976. 

Meanwhile, Important CIA operatives who had be«i placed on the 
staffs of seme major newspaper and broadcast outlets were told to 
resign and become stringers or freelancers, thus enabling Colby to 
assure concerned editors that members of their staffs were not CIA 
enployees. Colby also feared that some valuable stringer-operatives 
nrL^t find their covers blown if scrutiny of the Agency's ties with 

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POLLING STONE/BERNSTEIN 

36-36-36r-36 



Journalists continued. Some of these individuals were reassigned 
to Jobs on so-called proprietary publications — foreign periodicals 
and broadcast outlets secretly funded and staffed by the CIA. Other 
Journalists vrtw had signed fornal contracts vrlth the CIA — naldng 
than enployees of the Agency — were released from their contracts 
and asked to continue working under less fonnal arranganents . 

In November 1973, after many such shifts had been made, Colby 
told reporters and editors from the New York Times and the Washington 
Star that the Agency had "some three dozen" American newsmen "on the 
CIA payroll," including five who worked for "general-circulation news 
organizations." Yet even while the Senate Inte llig ence Conmittee was 
holding Its hearings in 1976, according to hl^-level CIA sources, 
the CIA continued to maintain ties with 75 tx> 90 Journalists of every 
description — executives, reporters, stringers, photographers, columnists, 
bureau clerks and manbers of broadcast technical crews. More than half 
of these had been moved off CIA contracts and payrolls but they were 
still bound by other secret agreements with the Agency. According to 

m 

an unpublished report by the House Select Corrmlttee on Intelligence, 
chaired by Representative Otis Pike, at least fifteen news organizations 
were still providing cover for CIA operatives as of 1976. 

Colby, who built a reputation as one of the most skilled under- 
cover tacticians in the CIA’s history, had himself run Journalists in 
clandestine operations before becoming director in 1973. But even 
he was said by his closest associates to have been disturbed at how 



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ROLLING SrONE/BERNSTEJN 

37-37-37-37 



extensively and. In his view, indiscriminately, the Agency continued 
to use Journalists at the time he took over. "Too prominent," the 
director frequently said of some of the Individuals and news organiza- 
tions then working with the CIA. (Others in the Agency refer to their 
best-known Journalistic eissets as "brand names.") 

"Colby's concern was that he might lose the resource altogether 
unless we became a little more careful about who • we used and how we 
got them," explained one of the former director's deputies. The 
thrust of Colby's subsequent actions was to move the Agency's affilia- 
tions away frcm the so-called "majors" and to concentrate them instead 
in smaller newspaper chains, broadcasting groups and such specialized 
publications ais trade Journals and newsletters. 

The Agency's unwillingness to end its use of Journalists and 
Its continued relationships with some news executives is largely the 
product of two basic facts of the Intelligence game: Journalistic 

cover is Ideal because of the Inquisitive nature of a reporter's Job; 
and many other sources of institutional cover have been denied the 
CIA In recent years by businesses, foundations and educational Institutions 
that once cooperated with the Agency. 

"It's tough to run a secret agency In this country," explained one 
high-level CIA official. "We have a curious aniblvalence about Intelligence. 
In order to serve overseas we need cover. But we have been fighting a 
rear guard action to try and provide cover. The Peace Corps Is off- lim its , 
so Is USIA, the foundations and voluntary organizations have been off- 
- limits since '67, and there is a self-ltiposed prohibition on Pulbrlghts 

-more- 






ROLLING STONEyBERNSTEIN 

38.^38-38-38 

^MLbrlght Scholars^ If you take the American ccrinunlty and line 
15) who could work for the CIA and vrtr) couldn't there Is a very 
narrow potential. Even the Foreign Service doesn't want us. So 
where the hell do you go? Business is nice, but the press is a 
natural. One Journalist is worth twenty agents. He has access, 
the ability to ask questions without arousing suspicion." 

» » » 







ROLLING STONE/BERNSIEIN 

39 - 39 - 39-39 



THE R0I£ OP THE CHURCH CCMCTTEE 

Despite the evidence of widespread CIA use of Journalists, the 
Senate Intelligence Coninlttee and Its staff decided against Questioning 
any of the reporters, editors, publishers or broadcast executives vyfliose 
relationships with the Agency are detailed In CIA flies. 

AccoixUng to sources In the Senate and the Agency, the use of 
Journalists was one of two areas of Inquiry which the CIA went to extraor- 
dlnaiy lengths to curtail. The other was the Agency's continuing and 
extensive use of academics for recruitment and Informatlon-gatheidng 
purposes . 

In both Instances, the sources said, former directors Colby and Bush 
and CIA special counsel Mitchell Rogovln were able to convince key mendsers 
of the committee that full inquiry or even limited public disclosure of 
the dimensions of the activities would do irreparable damage to the nation's 
Intelligence-gathering apparatus, as well as to the reputations of hundreds 
of Individuals, Colby was reported to have been especially persuasive In 
arguing that disclosure would bring on a latter-day ”wltch hunt" In which 
the vlctljns were reporters, publishers and editors.^ 

Walter Elder, deputy to forroer CIA director McCone and the principal 
Agency liaison to the Church corrmittee, argued that the cornnittee lacked 
Jurisdiction because there had been no misuse of Journalists by the CIA; 
the relationships had been voluntary. Elder cited as an exanple the case 
of the Louisville Couid.er^ournal . "Church and other people on the 
coninittee were on the chandelier about the Courier-Joum^T ," one Agency 
official said, "until we pointed out that we had gone to the editor to 
arrange cover, and that the editor had said, 'Fine.’" 



^nore- 



ROLLING STONE/mRNSTEIN 
4Qr40-ilQ-4Q 

Some members of the Church committee and staff feared that Agency 
officials had gained control of the inquiry and that they were being 
hoodwinked. "The Agency was extremely clever about it and the conmlttee 
played rl^t into its hands," said one congressional source familiar with 
all aspects of the Inquiry. "Oiurch and some of the other menbers were 
much more Interested in making headlines than in doing serious, tou^ 
investigating. The Agency pretended to be giving i?) a lot whenever it 
was asked about the flashy stuff — assassinations and secret weapons and 
James Bond operations. Then, when it came to thln^ that they didn't 
want to give away, that were much more Inportant to the Agency, Colby in 
particular called in his chits. And the conmlttee bou^t it." 

The Senate conmlttee *s lnvestlg3.tlon into the use of Journalists 
was sig«rvlsed by William B. Bader, a former CIA intelligence officer vho 
returned briefly to the Agency this year as deputy to CIA director Stans field 
Turner and is now a high-level intelligence official at the Defense Depart- 
raent. Bader was assisted by David Aaron, vrtio now serves as the deputy to 
Zbigilew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security adviser. 

According to colleagues on the staff of the Sqpate Inquliy, both 
Bader and Aaron were disturbed by the information contained in CIA files 
about Journalists; they urged that further investigation be undertaken by 
the Senate's new permanent CIA oversight conmlttee. That conmlttee, 
however, has spent its first year of existence writing a new charter for 
the CIA and menbers say there has been little interest in delving further 
into the CIA's use of the press. 



-more- 



ROLLING STONE/BERNSIEIN 
4X-4X-41J41 

Bader's investigation was conducted under unusually difficult 
conditions. His first request for specific information on the use of 
Jour n alists was turned down by the CIA on grounds that there had been no 
abuse of authority and that current Intelligence operations mi^t be 
conpromised. Senators Walter Huddleston, Howard Baker, Gary Hart, Walter 
Mondale and Charles Mathias — ^who had expressed Interest in the subject of 
the press and the CIA — shared Bader's distress at the CIA reaction. In a 
series of phone calls and meetings with CIA director George Bush and 
other Agency officials, the senators insisted that the committee staff 
be provided information about the scope of CIA-press activities. Finally, 
Bush agreed to order a search of the files and have those records pulled 
which dealt with operations vrtiere Journalists had been used. But the raw 
files could not be made available to Bader or the conmlttee. Bush insisted. 
Instead, the director decided, his deputies would condense the material 
into one-paragraph sumnarles describing in the most general terms the 
activities of each individual Journalist. Most Inportant, Bush decreed, the 
names of Journalists and of the news organizations with vtfilch they were 
affiliated would be omitted from the sunmaries. However, there mi^t ' 
be some indication of the geographicaO. area where the Journalist had 
served and a general description of the type of news organization for 
vidiich he worked. 

Assembling the sunmaries was difficult, according to CIA officials 
who supervised the Job. There were no "Journalist files" per se and 
information had to be collected from divergent sources that reflect the 
hl^Hy conpartmentallzed character of the CIA. Case officers who had 
handled Journalists supplied some names. Piles were pulled on various 
undercover operations in which it seansd logical that Journalists had 



POLLING STONE/BERNSIEIN 
42-42-42-42 

been used. (Significantly, all work by reporters for the Agency fell 
under the category of covert operations, not foreigi Intelligence.) Old sta- 
tion records were culled. "We really had to scrairble," said one official. 

After several weeks, Bader began receiving the sunmarles, which 
numbered over 400 by the time the Agency said it had conpleted searching 
its files . Bader and others to vAian he described the contents of the 
sunmarles Inmedlately reached some general conclusions: the sheer nuntoer 
of formalized relationships with Journalists was far greater than the CIA 
had ever hinted; and the Agency's use of reporters and news executives 
was an intelligence asset of the first magiltude. Reporters had been 
Involved in almost every conceivable kind of operation. Of the 400-plus 
individuals vAiose activities were surrmarlzed, between 200 and 250 were 
"working Jour na l i sts" in the usual sense of the term — reporters, editors, 
correspondents, photographers; the rest were employed (at least nominally) 
by book publishers, trade publications and newsletters. 

Still the sumnarles were Just that: corrpressed, vague, sketchy, 
incoiplete. Ihey could be subject to airfeiguous interpretation. And they 
contained no suggestion that the CIA had abused it s^ authority by manipulating 
the editorial content of American newspapers or broadcast reports. 

Bader's unease with what he had found led him to seek advice from 
several experienced hands in the fields of forei^ relations and 
intelligence. Ihey suggested that he press for more Infonnatlon and 
give those members of the comnittee in whom he had the most confidence a 
general idea of what the summaries revealed. Bader again went to fienators 
Huddleston, Baker, Hart, Mondale and mthlas. Meanwhile he told the CIA 



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ROLLING STONE/BEFiNS'IEIN 

43 -^ 3 - 43-^3 



that he wanted to see more — the full files on peitiaps a hundred or so 
of the Individuals whose activities were summarized. The reqi^est was 
turned down outrl^t. Ihe Agency would provide no more Information on the 
subject. Period. 

Ihe CIA's Intransigence led to an extraordinary dinner meeting at 
Agency headquarters In late March 1976. Those present Included Senators 
Prank Church (who had now been briefed by Bader) , John Tower of Texas , 
the vice-chairman of the comnlttee, Bader and William Miller, director of 
the coimlttee staff; CIA director Bush; Agency counsel Rogovln; and 
Seymour Bolton, a hl^o-level CIA operative vAio for years had been a 
station chief In Germany and Willy Brandt's case officer. Bolton had been 
deputized by Bush to deal with the cotnnlttee's requests for Information on 
Journalists and acad«nlcs. At the dinner, the Agency held to Its refusaLL 
to provide any full files. Nor would It give the comnlttee the names of 
any individual Journalists described In the 400 sumrarles of the news organi- 
zations with idiom they were affiliated. The discussion, according to 
participants, grew heated. The comnlttee 's representatives said they could 
not honor their mandate — to determine If the CIA ha^ abused Its authority— 
without further Information. The CIA maintained It could not protect 
Its legitimate Intelligence operations or Its enployees If further dis- 
closures were made to the ccmmlttee. Many of the Journalists were contract 
enployees of the Agency, Bush said at one point, and the CIA was no less 
obliga t ed to them than to any other agents. 

Finally a highly unusual agreement was hammered out: Bader and Miller 
would be permitted to examine "sanitized" versions of the full files of 
twenty-five Journalists selected from the suniiiarles; but the names of the 
Journalists and the news orga n i z a t ions which enployed them would be blanked 









ROLLING STONE/BERNSIEIN 



out, as would the identities of other CIA enployees mentioned in the 
files. Church and Tower would be permitted to examine the unsanitlzed 
versions of five of the twenty-five files — to attest that the CIA was not 
hiding anything except the names. Ihe whole deal was contingent on an 
agreement that neither Bader, Miller, Tower nor Church would reveal the 
contents of the files to other members of the comnlttee or staff. 

Bader began reviewing the 400-sorae sunmarles again. His object was 
to select twenty-five that, on the basis of the sketchy information they 
contained, seemed to represent a cross section. Dates of CIA activity, 
general descriptions of news organizations, types of Journalists and 
undercover operations all figured in his calculations. 

Prcan the twenty-five files he got back, according to Senate sources 
and CIA officials, an unavoidable conclusion emerged: that to a degree 
never widely suspected, the CIA in the 1950s, 60s and even early 1970s 
had concentrated its relationships with Journalists in the most prominent 
sectors of the American press corprf-. Including four or five of the largest 
newspa^)ers in the country, 1iie broadcast networks and the two major 
newsweekly m aga z i n es . Despite the omission of names and affiliations from 
the twenty-five detailed files (each was between three and eleven Inches 
thick), the information was usually sufficient to tentatively identify 
either the newsman, his affiliation or both — particularly because so many 
of them were prcMlnent in the profession. 

'There is quite an incredible spread of relationships," Bader reported 
to the senators. *TTou don^t need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, 
because there are Agency people at the manag^nent level." 

(Ironically, one major news organization that set limits on its 
de a li n g s with the CIA, according to Agency officials, was the one with 



Hno2?e- 



ROLLING STONE/BETiNSTEIN 

45 - 45 - 45-45 



perh^s the greatest editorial affinity for the Agency's long-range g;nai<? 
and policies: U.S. News and World Report . The late David Lawrence, the 
columnist and founding editor of U.S. News, was a close friend of Allen 
Dulles . But he repeatedly refused requests by the CIA director to use the 
magazine for cover purposes, the sources said. Atone point, according 
to a hl^n CIA official, Lawrence Issued orders to his sub-editors in vdilch 
he threatened to fire any U.S. News enployee vho was found to have 
entered into a formal relationship with the Agency. Former editorial 
executives at the m agazine confirmed that such orders had been Issued. 

CIA sources declined to say, however. If the magazine remained off-limits 
to the Agency after Lawrence's death In 1973 or If Lawrence's orders had 
been followed.) 

Meanwhile, Bader attenpted to get more Information fron the CIA, 
particularly about the Agency's current relationships with Journalists. 

He encountered a stone wall. "Busfi has done nothing to date," Bader told 
associates . "None of the Inportant operations are affected In even a marginal 
way." The CIA also refused the staff's requests for more Information on 
the use of academics. Bush began to urge members of the comnittee to cur- 
tail Its Inquiries In both areas and conceal Its findings in the final 
report. ”.He kept saying, 'Don't fuck these guys in the press and on the 
campuses,' pleading that tliey were the only areas of public life with any 
credibility left,” reported a Senate source. Colby, Elder and Rogovln 
also lnplored individual members of the conmittee to keep secret what the 
staff had found. "Ihere were a lot of representations that if this stuff 
got out some of the biggest names In Journalism would get smeaired,” 



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rolling STONE/BETiNS'IEIN 

U6-46-46-46 






I 

• f 







said another source. Exposure of the CIA's relationships vd.th joumallsts 
and acadend.cS} the Agency feared} would close down two of the few avenues 
of agent recruitment still open. "Ihe danger of e:5>osure Is not the 
other side}" explained one CIA expert In covert operations. "This Is not 
stuff the other side doesn't know about. The concern of the Agency Is that 

another area of cover will be denied. " 

A senator vho was the object of the Agency's lobbying later said: 

"From the CIA point of view this was the hl^iest} most sensitive covert 
program of all. . . .It was a much larger part of the operational systan 
than has been indicated." He added} "I had a great compulsion to press 
the point but it was late... If we had demanded} they would have gone the 
legal route to flgjit It." 

Indeed time was running out for the conralttee. In the view of 
many staff mentoers^lt had squandered its resources In the search for 
CIA assassination plots and polsoti pen letters . It had undertaken the 
inquiry Into Joumallsts almost as an afterthou^t. The dimensions of 
the program and the CIA's sensitivity to providing information on it had 
caught the staff and the conmlttee by surprise. The CIA oversl^t 
ccninittee that would succeed the Church panel would have the Inclination 
and the time to inquire into the subject methodically; if, as seemed 
likely} the CIA refused to cooperate further} the mandate of the successor 
conmlttee would put it in a more aidvantageoua position to wage a protracted 
fight... Or so the reasoning went as Church and the few other senators even 
vaguely familiar with Bader's findings reached a decision not to pursue 

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rolling stone/bernsiein 

47_ii7_ii7_2»7 

the matter further. No Journalists would be interviewed about their deal- 
ings with the Agency — either by the staff or by the senators, in secret 
or In open session. The specter, first raised by CIA officials, of a 
witch, hunt In the press corps haunted some members of the staff and the 
ccranlttee. "We weren't about to bring up guys to the committee and then 
have everybody say they've been traitors to the ideals of their profession," 
said a senator. 

Bader, according to associates, was satisfied with the decision and 
believed that the successor committee would pick up the Inquiry vhere he 
had left It. He was opposed to making public the names of individual 
Journalists. He had been concerned all along that he had entered a 
"gray area" In which there were no moral absolutes. Had the CIA "manipu- 
lated" the press In the classic sense of the term? Probably not, he 
concluded; the major news organizations and their executives had willingly 
lent their resources to the Agency;^ forelgi correspondents had regarded 
work for the CIA as natloral service and a way of getting better stories 
and climbing to the top of their profession. Had the CIA abused Its 
authority? It had dealt with the press almost exactly as It had dealt with 
other Institutions from which It sou^t cover^the diplomatic service, 
academia, corporations. Ihere was nothing In the CIA's charter which 
declared any of these Institutions off-limits to America's Intelligence 
service. And, In the case of the press, the agency had exercised none 
care in Its dealings than with many other institutions; It had gone to 
ccxislderable lengths to restrict Its domestic role to covei^ Bader was 



•Many Jour nalis ts and some CIA officials dispute the Agency's claim that it 
has been scrupulous In respecting the editorial integrity of American 
publications and broadcast outlets. 




ROLLING STONE/BE31NS’IEIN 

48 - 48 - 48-48 



also said to be concerned that his knowledge was so heavily based on 
Inforroatlon furnished by the CIA that he hadn't gotten the other side 
of the story from those Journalists who had associated with the Agency. 

He could be seeing only "the lantern show, " he told associates . Still , 

Bader was reasonably sure that he had seen pretty much the full panoply 
of what was in the files . If the CIA had wanted to deceive him It would 
have never given away so much, he reasoned. "It was smart of the agency 
to cooperate to the extent of showing the material to Bader," observed 
a conmlttee source. '"Ihat way. If one fine day a file pepped ip the 
A^ncy would be covered. Ihey could say they had already informed the 
Congress . " 

Ihe dependence on CIA files posed another problem: the CIA's 

perception of a relatlcaishlp with a Journalist ml^t be quite different 
than that of the Journalist: A CIA official might think he had exercized 

control over a Journalist; the Jouroallst mi^t think he had sinply had 
a few drinks with a spook. It was possible that CIA case officers had ' 
written self-serving memos for the files about their dealings with Journa- 
lists, that the CIA was Jiist as subject to conxnon btSreaucratic "cover- 
your-ass" paperwork as any other agency of government. 

A CIA official who attoipted to persuade members of the Senate 
comnlttee that the Agency's use of Journalists had been Innocuous 
maintained that the files were Indeed filled with "puffing" by case officers. 
"You can't establish vhat is puff and vhat isn't," he claimed. Many 
reporters, he added, "were recruited for finite /specific/ undertakings 
and would be appalled to find that they were listed /in Agency files/ as 

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TOIITNG SraiE/EERNS'IEIN' 

4|-I»9J<9_1i9 

CIA operatives." This same official estimated that the flies contained 
descriptions of about half a dozen reporters and correspondents vAio would 
be considered "fanious"— that Is, their names would be recogiized by 
most Americans. "The files show that the CIA goes to the press for help 
and Just as often that the press comes to the CIA," he observed. "...There 
Is a tacit agreonent In many of these cases that there Is going to be a 
quid pro quo" — l.e., that the reporter Is going to get good stories fron 
the Agency and that the CIA will pick 153 some valuable services from 
the reporter. 

Whatever the Interpretation, the findings of the Senate ccminlttee’s 
Inquiry into the use of Journalists were deliberately burled— from the 
full matibershlp of the coimilttee, from the Senate and from the public. 

"There was a difference of opinion on how to treat the subject," explained 
one source. "Some [senators] thought these were abuses vMch should be 
exorcized and there were those v*io said ,'We don't know If this Is bad 
or not . ' " ‘ 

Bader's fin dings on the subject were never discussed with the full 
conulttee, even In executive session. That ralg^t h^ve led to leaks — 
espec ia l l y In view of the ejq)loslve nature of the facts . Since the beginning 
of the Church ccnmlttee's Investigation, leaks had been the panel's biggest 
collective fear, a real threat to Its mission. At the sll^test sign of a 
leak the CIA mlgit cut off the flow of sensitive Information (as It did several 
times in other areas ) , c laim ing that the conmlttee could not be trusted with 
secrets . To describe In the comnlttee ' s final report the true dimensions 
of the Agency's use of Journalists would cause a furor In the press and on 

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RDLLING Sra^E/BERNSTEIN 
50-50-50-50 

the Senate floor. And It would result In heavy pressure on the CIA to end 
Its use of Journalists altogether. "We Just weren't ready to take that 
step," said a senator. A similar decision was made to conceal the results 
of the staff's Inquiry Into the use gf academics. Bader, who supervised 
both areas of Inquliy, concurred In the decisions and drafted those sections 
of the ccannlttee's final report. Pages 191 to 201 were entitled "Covert 
Relationships with the Uhlted States Media." "It hardly reflects what 
we found," stated Senator Gary Hart. "There was a prolonged and elaborate 
negotiation [with the CIA] over what would be said." 

Obscuring the facts was relatively slnple. No mention was made of 
the 400 summaries or what they showed. Instead the report noted blandly 
that some fifty recent contacts with Journalists had been studied by the 
cciiiiilttee staff — thus conveying the Impression that the Agency's dealings 
with the press had been limited to those Instances. The Agency files, 

the report noted, contained little evidence that the editorial content of 

1 .- 

Amerlcan news reports had been affected by the CIA's dealing with Journalists. 
Colby's misle adin g public statements about the use of Journalists were 
repeated without serious contradiction or elaboratlen. The role of cooperating 
news executives was given short shrift. The fact that the Agency had 
concentrated Its relationships In the most prominent sectors of the press went 
unmentloned. That the CIA continued to regard the press as 155 for grabs was 
not even suggested. 




(sidebars to folo) 



ROILING STONE/BERNSTEIN 
SIDEBAR A-1 



WDRKING PRESS— CIA STiflE 



To understand the role of most Journal Ist/operatlves , it Is 
necessary to dismiss some myths about undercover work for American 
intelligence services. Pew American agents are "spies" in the popularly 
accepted sense of the tern. "Spying" — the acquisition of secrets from 
a foreign government — is almost always done by foreign nationals who have 
been recmjlted by the CIA and are under CIA control in their own countries. 
Thus the primary role of an American working undercover abroad is often 
to aid in the recruitment and "handling" of forelgi nationals who are 
channels of secret information reaching American intelligence. 

Many Journalists were used by the CIA to assist in this process and 
they had the reputation of being among the best in the business. The 
pecul iar nature of the Job of the foreign correspondent is ideal for such 
work: He is accorded unusual access by his host country, permitted to 
travel in areas often off-limits to other Americans, spends much of 
time cultivating sources in governments, academic Ifistltutlons , the military 
establishment and the scientific conmunltles . He has the opportunity to 
form long-term personal relationships with sources and — pertiaps more 
than ary other category of American operative — 1s in a position to make 
correct Judgmsnts about the susceptibility and availability of forelgi 

nationals for recruitment as spies . - . i: . ' J-iJf 

■ ‘i' 

"After a forelgier is recruited, a case officer often has to stay in 
the background," e:q5lalned a CIA official. "So you use a Journalist to 
coninunlcate and carry messages to and fixm both parties." 



-more- 




t , .i ^k.-‘ . . 



M 

n. . 

.A 

•a 

■'.H' ■ 

■•V. 



..Z" — 

ROLLING STONE/BERNSIEIN 
SIDEBAR A-2 



Journalists in the field generally took their assignments in the same 
manner as any other undercover operative. If, for instance, a Journalist 
was based in Austria, he ordinarily would be under the general direction 
of the Vienna station chief and report to a case officer. Some, particularly 
roving correspondents or U.S. based reporters who made frequent trips 
abroad, reported directly to CIA officials in Langley, Virginia. 

The tasks they performed sometimes consisted of little more than 
serving as "eyes and ears" for the CIA: reporting on vrtiat they had 

seen or overheard in an Eastern European factory at a diplojiatic reception, 
in Bonn, on the perimeter of a milltaiy base in Portugal. On other occasions, 
their assignments were more conplex: planting subtly concocted pieces of 
mlslnfonnatlon; hosting parties or receptions designed to bring together 
American agents and foreign spies; serving up "black" propaganda to 
leading foreign Journalists at lunch or dinner; providing their hotel 
rooms or bureau offices as "drops"^for hl^dy sensitive infomatlon 
moving to and from foreign agents; conveying instructions and dollars 
to CIA controlled members of foreign governments. 



Often the, CIA's relationship with a joumalistTmigiit begin informally with 
a lunch, a drink, a casual exchange of information. An Agency official 
might then offer a favor - for example, ’a trip to a country difficult to reach; 
in return, he would seek nothing more than the opportunity to debrief 
the reporter afterward. A few more lunches, a few more favors, and caiiy. 



then might there be a mention of a formal arrangement — "That came lab^,"^ 
said a CIA official, 'After you had the Journalist on a string." 



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Ponnal recrultnent of reporters was generally handled at hi^ levels — 
after the Journalist had undergone a thorou^ background check. The 
actual approach ml^t even be made by a deputy director or division chief. 

On seme occasions, no discussion would be entered into until the Journalist 
had sighed a pledge of secrecy. 

"Ihe secrecy agreement was the sort of ritual that got you into the 
t^lbemacle," said a former assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence, 
"After that you had to play by the rules." David Attlee Phillips, former 
Western Hemisphere chief of clandestine settees and a former Journalist 
himself, estimated in an interview that at least 200 Journalists signed 
secrecy agreements or enployment contracts with the Agency in the past ' 
twenty-five years. Phillips, who owned a small English-language newspaper 
in Santiago, Chile, vrtnen he was recruited by the CIA in 1950, described the 
approach: "Sonebody fran the Agency says, ’I want you to help ne. I know 

you are a true blue American, but i^.want you to sign a piece of paper before 
I tell you what it's about. ’ I didn't hesitate to sign," noted Phillips, 



" and a lot of newsmen didn't hesitate over the next twenty years." , 






" One of the things we always had going for us in terms of entlcJ^ 
reporters," observed a CIA official who coordinated some of the arrangements 
with Journalists, "was that we could make them look better with their home 
offices. A forelgi correspondent with ties to the Conpany [the CIA] stood 
a much better chance than his conpetltors of getting the good stories." 

Within the CIA, Journalist-operatives were accorded elite status, a 
consequence of the coninon e:q)erlence Journalists shared with high-level 
CIA officials. Many had gone to the same schools as their CIA handler's, moved 



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in the same circles, shared fashionably liberal, antl-Coinmmlst political 
values, and were part of the same "old boy" network that constituted 
sonethlng of an establishment elite in the media, politics and academia 
of postwar America. Ihe most valued of these lent themselves for reasons _ 
of national service, not money. 

The Agency's use of Journalists in undercover operations has been 
most extensive In Western Europe ("That was the big focus, v^iere the threat 
was," said one CIA official), Latin America and the Par East. In the 1950s , 

and 1960s Journalists were used as intermediaries — spotting, paying, passing ^ 

instructions— to members of the Christian Democratic party in Italy and the 
Social Danocrats in Germany, both of which covertly received millions of 
dollars from the CIA. During those years "we had Journalists aiU over Berlin 
and Vienna Just to keep track of who the hell was coming in from the East 
and vitet they were to," explained a CIA official. 

In the Sixties, reporters were used extensively in the CIA offensive 

Or .* 

against the Salvador Allende regime in Chile; they provided funds to 
Allende's opponents and wrote anti-AUende propaganda for CIA proprd.etary 
publications that were distributed in Chile. (CIA «fflclals insist that 
they make no attenpt to influence the content of American newspapers, but 
sane fallout is inevitable; during the Chilean offensive, CIA-generated black 
propaga n da was often transmitted on the wire services out of Santiago and 
turned up in American publications.) 

According to CIA officials, the Agency has been particularly sparing 
in its use of Journalist-agents in Eastern Europe on grounds that exposure 
ml^t result in diplomatic sanctions against the IMlted States or in permanent 







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prohibitions against American correspondents serving In some countries. The 
same officials claim that their use of Journalists In the Soviet Ifrdon has 
been even more limited but they remain extrenely guarded in discussing the 
subject. They are insistent, however, in maintaining that the Moscow 
correspondents of major news organizations have not been "tasked" or 
controlled by the Agency. 

The Soviets, according to CIA officials, have consistently raised feilse 
charges of CIA affiliation against individual American reporters as 
part of a continuing diplomatic gone that often follows the ups and downs 
of Soviet-Amerlcan relations. Ihe latest such charge by the Ptusslans — 
against Christopher Vfren of the New York Times and Alfred Friendly Jr. , 
formerly of Newsweek, has no basis in fact, they insist. 

CIA officials acknowledge, however, that such charges will persist as 
long as the CIA continues to use Journalistic cover and maintains fonnal 
affiliations with individuals in the profession. But even an absolute 
prohibition against Agency use of Journalists would not free reportei^ ftxan 
suspicion, according to many Agency officials. "LoSk at the Peace Corps," 
sad-d one source. "We have had no affiliation there and they [foreign 
governments] still throw them out." 



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WORDS OF DISGUISE 



Part of the confusion surrounding the use of American Journalists 
by the CIA stems from semantic distinctions peculiar to the Intelllgsnce- 
gatherlng profession. By carefully (and often misleadingly) using such 
spyspeak terms as "contract enployee," "agent," "ccaitrol capability," 
"unilateral memo of understanding," "agent of opportunity" and "intelligence 
asset," the Agency has made it virtually impossible for almost any layman — 
including reporters experienced in covering intelligence activities and sena- 
tors accustomed to being briefed by intelligence officers — to determine 
the exact nature of many relationships maintained by the CIA over the 
years with individual Journalists. The Agency has also managed to 
obscure the most elemental fact about the relationships detailed in its 
files: that they were formal, l.e., that there was recognition by all 
parties Involved that the cooperatlhg Joxjmalists were woridng for the 
CIA — whether or not they were paid ‘or had signed enployment contracts . 

The pi?oblem of determining the precise role Joumalists have played 
has been ccarpounded by the CIA’s use of equally technical terms peculiar 
to the profession of Journalism — among them "stringer/’ "accredited 
correspondent," "editorial employee," "general circulation," "freelance" 
and even "reporter.” CIA officials, particularly Colby, have consistently 
entangled In a semantic thicket the answers to such seemingly simple 
questions as "Has Stewart Alsop ever waited for the CIA?" or "Has the 
Agency ever used Time magazine correspondents as undercover operatives?" 



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The answer to both questions is yes, althou#i Colby has refused to answer 
either. 

The figure of 400 Journalists who maintained formal relationships 
j. with the Agency refers only to those who were "tasked" In their undercover 

assignments or had a mutxial understanding that they would help the Agency 
or were subject to some form of CIA contractual control. It does not 
Include even larger nutitoers of Journalists v*io occasionally traded favors 
with CIA officers In the normal give-and-take that exists between reporters 
and their sources. Ihelr activities, too, are detailed In Agency files. 

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